​Ex-wife of Saudi King asks Obama to help ‘save captive daughters’

US President Barack Obama (C-L) is greeted by Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (C-R) upon his arrival at Rawdat Khurayim, the monarch's desert camp 60 miles (35 miles) northeast of Riyadh ahead of a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, on March 28, 2014.(AFP Photo / Saul Loeb) / AFP

Alanoud AlFayez, a former wife of Saudi ruler King Abdullah who fled to London after their divorce has asked Barack Obama, who is in Riyadh, to help release her daughters. The four women claim they are being kept under house arrest.

“For 13 years, my daughters have been held captive,”
Alanoud told AFP.

“They need to be saved and released immediately. Mr Obama
should take this opportunity to address these grave violations
committed against my daughters.”

The four women – who say they live in two mansions in a closed
royal compound in the country’s second city Jeddah – are between
42 and 38, with at least one suffering from psychological
problems.

“We have no passports or ID, we are under house arrest, with
little food left for ourselves and pets,” Princess Sahar,
the eldest daughter, told AFP in a letter.

She said her three half-brothers are her legal guardians, and
exercise total control over their movements and public
activities, as allowed by Saudi law.

“On their orders, they have been literally starving us since
last Wednesday. We are now living on one meal a day, leaving the
little remaining meat for our pets and sipping little water in
this heat, to save up. Our energy is quite low and we are trying
our best to survive.”

Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations, saying the princesses
are allowed to freely move about Jeddah, as long as they are
accompanied by bodyguards.

The frail King Abdullah, officially 89, but perhaps even older,
has fathered at least 38 children with multiple wives.

He married AlFayez, who is from a prosperous Lebanese family,
when she was only 15. But the two fell out at the beginning of
this millennium, and after several reconciliations, AlFayez
escaped to the UK, fearful for her life.

She and her daughters say they have been punished as a form of
retribution. Sahar has also said that they are being punished for
daring to criticize poverty and violations of human rights in the
oil-rich state in front of their father.

It is not clear what the US President, who is on his first visit
to Saudi Arabia since 2009, could do about the situation,
considering the raft of existing issues between the troubled
allies.

Riyadh has been disappointed by Obama’s reluctance to directly
enter the Syrian conflict, and has been alarmed by the
rapprochement with Iran, which it regards as its chief religious
and political rival in the region.

Obama and King Abdullah met on Friday on an opulent farm outside
the capital, where the elderly monarch spoke while breathing
through an oxygen tube. The content of their talks was not made
public.

In a statement to the media, Obama mentioned that the countries
resolved their “tactical differences” over Syria, but
did not mention human rights in the Gulf state. Obama will hold
more meetings on Saturday, before departing the same day.